2009-03-20

Last Link on the Left, the go-to place to read up on Edmonton's homicide team, informed us that on February 7th Edmonton Police reported an arrest was imminent in the case of Shernell Pierre. You may recall I've posted on her before: it remains one of my most-read entries. It turns out a good reason for that is that my posts were linked by LLotL:

As police continued with their investigation, a local blog provided possible background information on Pierre's recent male relationships. The entry raised the question of "internet speculation" amongst media and police.

The Edmonton-based blog The Third Edge of the Sword posted an entry on Sunday, March 16th titled The inside scoop on that nurse in the burning car.

The Third Edge blogger responded to the reporters' requests in a posting detailing the extent of his knowledge of the case.

The issue of stories and comments posted on the internet became the focus of an Edmonton Sun article written by Kevin Crush, first posted online late on March 20th and printed in their hard copy issue the next day.

Perhaps frustrated by the Third Edge blogger's refusal to speak to media, the Sun posed the question of "internet speculation" to the detective in charge of the Pierre case, Dennis Storey.

The officer said it "barely registers with investigators" and "it's all being taken with a grain of salt.

“Unless there is something of significance on there that we know nothing about, we don’t pay too much attention to it. It holds no value whatsoever. It's a lot of people voicing their opinions,” Storey told the Sun.

“If they have something of substance, then they should be calling us.”

The detective said the sensational nature of the case was likely fueling the "speculation."

“You're going to get a lot of rumors and a lot of people trying to solve this in their own head. They’re going to come up with ideas and share it and there’s no accountability for them and their comments.

"They can say whatever they like and if they’re wrong they say sorry and that doesn’t really work with us as far as criminal investigations go.”

I gotta say that last bit was new to me: I don't read the paper daily, so I hadn't noticed what may well be an allusion to what I wrote here. On the other hand, it could just be things like message board speculation:

SewingDeb,

Apparently there is a witness who saw the suspect sitting in the passenger seat.

I wonder if he set the car on fire after he shot her, to get rid of any dna evidence he left in the car.

Still, I like the bit about "Unless there is something of significance on there that we know nothing about, we don’t pay too much attention to it. It holds no value whatsoever. It's a lot of people voicing their opinions". It ties in pretty close with some of the other things that EPS has been surprised about that they could have learned on this blog.